Government running up a ‘wellbeing deficit’

Wellbeing. It’s shaping up to be the political buzzword of the year, with the prime minister jetting to Davos to share with the world her government’s ‘‘Wellbeing Agenda’’, ahead of May’s ‘‘Wellbeing Budget’’.

It is far too premature to determine whether Jacinda Ardern’s ‘‘wellbeing approach’’ amounts to a substantive transformation in budgeting and governing, or whether it’s just a fluffy, feel-good catchphrase du jour to signal her Government’s mollycoddling modus operandi and redistributive grand designs.

Either way, leading a productive life is surely the fundamental prerequisite to affirming an individual’s sense of wellbeing.

Legalising recreational cannabis cuts right across any semblance of enhancing national wellbeing.

As does encouraging people to waste away their lives on welfare. It is on that score that the Government is running up a growing wellbeing deficit.

The latest quarterly report from the Ministry of Social Development on benefit numbers makes grim reading.

As at December 2018, 299,345 working-age people were in receipt of a main benefit, up 3.3 per cent in 12 months.

But even more lamentable, given the robust health of the New Zealand economy, is the sizeable jump in Kiwis joining the dole ranks.

Despite well-publicised and gaping labour shortages plaguing a swag of sectors, from aged care, construction and hospitality to fruit-picking and forestry, the number of working-age people on Jobseeker Support rocketed by 11,000 year-on-year, with 134,048 people – 4.5 per cent of the working-age population – now parked on Jobseeker Support. That’s the highest percentage since 2014.

To add insult to injury, the upswing was mostly driven by a 12.9 per cent increase in the Jobseeker Support – Work Ready category, while fruit literally rots on the vine and job vacancies fester.

The figures are even more unflattering in Canterbury, where the number of beneficiaries listed in that category has skyrocketed by 26.5 per cent, compared with 12 months ago. It is not just alarming, but deplorable.

In Christchurch alone, 9730 are currently receiving Jobseeker Support. Is it really just a coincidence that these rapid increases in the dole queue coincide with a dramatic collapse in benefit sanctions?

The number of sanctions issued in the December 2018 quarter was 8536, compared to 14,778 in the December 2017 quarter.

With benefit sanctions now wiped on sole parents who fail to disclose the identity of the birth father, the main reason for sanctions is the failure to attend arranged appointments, job interviews and fulfil work obligations.

But with sanctions issued nose-diving, while benefit numbers sharply rise, the Government’s desire to give recalcitrant beneficiaries a break has come home to roost.

Rapidly expanding and cossetting the welfare state is core policy for the Green Party. Despite some initial policy wins, their full laundry list of welfare demands is currently being mused by the Welfare Reform Working Group.

The figures are even more unflattering in Canterbury ... In Christchurch alone, 9730 are currently receiving Jobseeker Support.

Topping the Green Party’s wish-list is the complete abolition of all benefit sanctions, substantially lifting the weekly payment of all core benefits by 20 per cent, and increasing work abatement rates from $80 a week to $200 a week, before their benefit is reduced.

If that policy reform trifecta was to transpire, aided and abetted by Labour, where the hell is the incentive to ever wean yourself off the benefit?

How can New Zealand ever have a world-class economy when one in 10 working-age people live off the welfare state?

Attending to genuine hardship and lending a helping hand is the hallmark of a responsive government and a decent society. Taxpayers shell out $3 billion in accommodation supplements alone, to over 300,000 households.

I am proud to live in a country that has a social safety net, but feather-bedding the hammock for political capital is a betrayal of the welfare state’s core purpose.

Going too soft on welfare literally doesn’t work, particularly if we seriously want to tackle the cancer of inter-generational dependency.

The pursuit of prosperity by leading a productive and independent life is being stomped on.

Entrenching state dependence and fattening the handouts is a perverse definition of wellbeing in action.